


loneliness, loneliness, such a waste of time

by coaldustcanary



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Everything as a Metaphor for Love, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Multi, They're Not Super Swift on the Uptake About It Though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:34:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28306857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaldustcanary/pseuds/coaldustcanary
Summary: There are four basic human needs: food, sleep, sex and revenge. —  BanksyThe development of a relationship by way of unrecognized needs being fortuitously and successfully met.
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo/Gaby Teller
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30
Collections: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Winter Holiday Gift Exchange 2020





	loneliness, loneliness, such a waste of time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InNovaFertAnimus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InNovaFertAnimus/gifts).



Gaby awoke, squinting in the dappled morning sunlight scattered through the window, and immediately slid down further under the thick blanket tenting her bed with a muffled hum of pleasure. Tucked under the eaves in the attic room as she was, the warmth of the house was heavy and comfortably cozy. She could reach out and touch the polished wood grain of the ceiling boards with her fingertips if she wished. 

She preferred remaining immobile and luxuriating in the trapped warmth of her bed. There were faint, familiar sounds emerging from the floor below - the sizzle of fat and the muted chime of moving china - that meant her foster mother was preparing breakfast. She would have to be up soon. But for the space of a slow breath, then another, Gaby was content to be still.

By the third breath she remembered where she was, _when_ she was, and it hitched softly in her throat as she cracked open her eyes once more. She was in a small loft built into the peaked roof of the cabin, open to the large main room below. Gaby turned her head, still half-hooded by the blanket pulled up around her ears, and peered down through the carved spindles that provided a protective railing along the loft’s edge.

Napoleon was up and about below, busily making breakfast.

Gaby had another disorienting moment, then, as she recalled the first time she’d seen the American cooking with his sleeves rolled up, dress shirt and well-tailored slacks protected by an incongruous apron. She’d watched him sidelong that night in West Berlin as he stirred the pot—both the one simmering on the stove with a briskly-wielded wooden spoon, and the one in which they found themselves both caught with his carefully casual questions about her family. She’d brashly questioned him right back as much as she dared, but his deflections were adroit and well-practiced, and she’d swallowed her disappointment and frustration with the wine he’d poured for her.

It had been good wine, too. Somehow that had annoyed her even more. Gaby had danced on the stage as a solist; she knew a performance when she saw one.

Half a year and half a world away from Berlin, and some things hadn’t changed. Even here, with no audience to speak of, there was a sort of deliberate, soothing flow about the way Napoleon moved around the snug kitchen, she mused. He flipped a few bacon slices out of the sizzling pan with precise motions and dropped a spare pot lid over the plate to keep them warm while she watched over the blanket’s edge through half-closed eyes. Or perhaps every good cook had such a way about them—

“Breakfast will be ready in five minutes, if you’re ready to vacate the down comforter.” Napoleon’s voice was pitched just loud enough to carry up to her, though he didn’t look up from the pot of water he was stirring briskly with a spoon. Gaby muffled a grunt of annoyance into her pillow. The corner of his mouth seemed to draw up a fraction in response, though his attention appeared to be entirely devoted to cracking an egg precisely into the middle of the swirling, steaming liquid. After carefully adjusting the flame under the pot, he stepped back, wiping his hands on a striped kitchen towel, and looked up into the loft expectantly.

Gaby sniffed and rolled out of the bed, shuffling on her knees to set the blankets to half-hearted rights, and pulled on her slippers before descending the loft’s ladder. Though the wood-fired stove was burning away and the warmth of the cooktop enough to set Napoleon’s hair to curling on his forehead, there was still a chill in the air. Gaby settled for wrapping one of the neatly-folded blankets from the sofa around her shoulders before dropping into a kitchen chair.

“Where did you—” she cut off abruptly, jerking her chin toward the sideboard full of food, and including the four separate burners busy on the stovetop with a wave of her hand.

“Went to the market down in town this morning,” he replied, interrupting his measuring look to return to tending the bacon. Despite Napoleon’s turned back, she forced herself not to react to that news with anything but a disinterested hum. If true, she had slept far more heavily than she had in a long time.

Or perhaps the art thief was just that quiet.

“And did your shopping trip include cof—” Napoleon turned back around with the French press in hand. Gaby snagged a coffee cup from the neat stack in the center of the table and held it out expectantly.

“Only the best for my dear little wife,” he said smoothly, winking at her and pouring the coffee neatly into the cup and transferring the rest of the brew into a copper urn to sit next to the stove.

“Oh yes, I’m quite sure Richard Oglethorpe cooks his own breakfast quite regularly. Honestly, you went to the shops, instead of sending one of the resort employees? Or even your own servant?” she grumbled. She wasn’t overly concerned about their covers—a certain amount of eccentricity among the absurdly _nouveau riche_ was quite within character and even desirable for what they’d cobbled together for this affair—but it still surprised her. Napoleon only hitched his shoulders in an easy shrug.

“Now, now, dearest. Don’t worry about a thing. We’re rusticating, after all,” Napoleon said with evident relish. “I exclaimed over everything in town as “quaint” and bought more food than even Illya will be able to eat this week, I expect. But my devoted little wife does conjure wonders in the kitchen, despite her limited English and rags-to-riches backstory. So I implied, anyway.” Gaby snorted indelicately. In reality, own cooking skills were functional but limited. She could boil an egg and fry bacon well enough, but not with any kind of precision. More than raw and less than burnt was her general aim for most meals when she was stuck preparing her own food.

Not that she’d had to do that for a while, she realized, sipping her coffee. Even between jobs she could often count on Napoleon to offer to make her dinner at his place or to take her out for a bite to eat somewhere. Illya would often appear at her work desk in the mornings with a bag from a bakery held out in front of him at arm’s length like an offering, something made of flaky pastry or dense cake hidden within. 

“I’m going to get fat if you keep this up. Your sweet, domestic little hausfrau will blow up, pfft, and then where will you be?” she gestured with her coffee cup in a sweeping motion from her stomach. Napoleon only grinned, a hint of amusement beyond his usual polite, fractional smiles curling the corner of his mouth.

“That’s alright. Illya will buy you a whole new wardrobe full of Patou frocks, won’t you, Peril?” Despite the scant few hours of rest he must have had, Illya was shaved and dressed and set fully to rights as he emerged from the cabin’s single bedroom. He only grunted in response to Napoleon’s comment, looming over the other man’s shoulder at the stovetop and reaching around him to take a piece of bacon from the pan—only to have his hand swiftly met by the back of a wooden spoon.

“ _Nyet._ ” Napoleon lightly rapped Illya’s knuckles, and then reached out to tap the bowl of the spoon on the covered plate of bacon set off to one side. “That’s yours, if you must. Leave Gaby’s bacon to finish burning. Or, you could sit down at the table—” Illya crunched a piece of bacon between his teeth and made a thoughtful noise.

“It’s not bad. I will eat,” he declared, settling into a seat across from Gaby and stretching out his legs under the table.

“Anything interesting happen last night?” Gaby asked, reaching out to push the coffee urn across the table. Illya pursed his lips and tipped his head from side to side.

“Perhaps. It seems that Chasseur’s wife is having an affair with the driver,” Illya said dryly. Gaby paused with her cup halfway to her mouth, and Napoleon spun on his heel with plate in hand, eyebrow quirked in consternation.

“No.” Gaby set her cup down on the table with a clatter, and muffed a startled laugh into her hand. 

“You have to be joking,” Napoleon said, setting down a plate of toast, poached egg, bacon and hollandaise-dressed greens in front of each of them before turning back to the range top for his own breakfast. Gaby’s bacon was decidedly more cooked than Illya’s, and her toast cut thicker. She pushed the pepper mill across the table to Illya before he could ask for it, shaking her head at the coincidence of it all.

“Oh, that is too perfect. They’re already playing the game we had planned, but for real.” Gaby tilted her head at Illya. “It is real, yes?” Illya nodded.

“Very real. And enthusiastic,” he confirmed with a nod, picking up his fork and digging into the breakfast with gusto.

“Hmm.” Napoleon sat down with his own plate, shaking his head and spearing his poached egg with the tip of his knife. “We might need to work with a slightly different take on this cover, then.” Gaby took a bite of toast and chewed thoughtfully, shaking her head.

“I don’t think so. Let me work _her_ instead. I’ll go to her, one woman trapped in a loveless marriage to another, seeing a confidante, someone who understands what it’s like. At worst we find she’s just as much a predator as her husband, and she’ll cut me down to save herself. At best, perhaps she’s a better angle on her husband’s business dealings than the man himself. You’re good, but charming Chasseur will take time.” Napoleon looked dubious.

“It seems risky,” he observed. “Our intel on the wife is far more limited than our file on Chasseur himself.”

“Then we get more information. It’s a gamble, but…” Gaby trailed off, and toyed with a piece of bacon. “No, better idea. Let her stumble upon _us_.” Illya’s eyes widened slightly, and he shifted in his seat.

“Putting the ball in her court seems like even _more_ of a gamble,” Napoleon observed. “She might do anything in the moment, finding her husband’s new partner’s wife engaged in such behavior.”

“But we find out her place in all this even more quickly. Her loyalties, her leverage, her character.” Gaby sunk her teeth into a slice of thick, slightly-charred bacon and hummed her approval, closing her eyes.

“It’s a fair idea,” Napoleon allowed, leaning shamelessly across the table to hook his fingertips in the handle of the coffee urn and pour his own cup. Illya nodded reluctantly, and bent to the table once more with a slightly flustered air, picking up his coffee cup with a frown.

“So, where do we have you climb Peril like a tree for Mrs. Chasseur to stumble upon, hmm?”

Illya sputtered around a mouthful of coffee, and Gaby couldn’t help but grin.

* * *

Napoleon awoke, and wished immediately that he hadn’t. Normally he woke quickly and cleanly—as anyone who had been a soldier, thief, or spy and excelled at their job should. Successful at all three, Napoleon had honed the ability to become swiftly alert to a razor-sharp edge.

The process was generally second nature, but felt suddenly like an inordinate struggle; consciousness felt somehow distant, just beyond the reach of his fingertips. Did he even have fingertips? He wasn’t entirely certain. His limbs felt only marginally present, and he didn’t have any confidence that they were firmly attached to his body, given the heavy, numb feeling pressing down on him like a thick, stifling quilt.

His chest ached fiercely, however. That much he was sure of, and even his shallow breaths barely kept the pain at bay, sharpening it wickedly if he inhaled too deeply. It took every bit of his concentration to keep his breath steady, and there was none spare to consider his surroundings, or even force his eyes to open. 

The warm hand pressing suddenly atop his shoulder was both relief and anchor, but Napoleon couldn’t but drag in a deeper breath as he fought for consciousness, flinching at the intensity of the ache. His fingers twitched convulsively, scrabbling for purchase—they appeared to be attached after all, that was good, he thought vaguely—even as the hand on his shoulder stopped pressing down and instead pulled him up, levering his upper body abruptly into a sitting position. He wheezed, drowning out the murmur of voices, syllables blurring into a buzzing he couldn’t begin to decipher, but a sudden sharp hiss of expelled air cut through the noise. His next near-desperate breath was suddenly easier, the whine of air dragged into recalcitrant lungs less labored than before.

“Breathe,” a voice ordered him. What else could he do? Upright, bonelessly limp as he was, a strong grip kept him from sinking back down, and when drawing a breath finally became only difficult, not impossible, he cracked open an eye. Gaby peered at him worriedly, her hair a scattered halo around her face, and a slender metal tube with a button beneath her thumb in her right hand. Her left hand was carefully pressed to his throat, marking time by the erratic jump of his pulse, apparently. He attempted a smile; her slightly watery expression pegged his failure as fairly complete.

Napoleon tried to roll off a passably witty comment, something about the delight of waking to a familiar face. He didn’t have the energy at present to consider the deluge of relief that had coursed through his body in truth in that moment, in truth. But instead he found himself coughing roughly, unable to do anything but slump back from Gaby’s worried expression.

“Breathe,” Illya said again, his voice tight. “Only that. In. Out. Save witty comment for later, Cowboy.” The arm around his back, and the support at his shoulder was one large, unyielding Russian.

“Wasn’t—gonna.” Napoleon managed between bouts of new coughing, grimacing as they decreased in severity as well as pain, though they didn’t abate entirely.

“You were,” Gaby said roughly. “Just breathe. Or else—” She mimed depressing the button on the tube in her hand again. Napoleon frowned and blinked blearily. The tube was familiar. U.N.C.L.E had developed a variety of gasses and their counteragents for use in covert operations. But he wasn’t familiar with the contents code imprinted in the side.

“Antidote—t’what?” he managed.

“Poison gas. Some new concoction of T.H.R.U.S.H,” Illya answered grimly, his face sliding into view as he eased Napoleon back against a sturdy column of pillows. He looked worn out, and the stubble lining his cheeks spoke of a last shave days past.

“Luckily, the new counteragent developed by R & D foresaw their line of research, and is two steps ahead of their line. Well,” Illya admitted, “at least one step.”

“Half step,” Napoleon grunted, sagging into the pillows and peering around the room. They were neither in a hospital nor at U.N.C.L.E’s medical wing, but still in the fine hotel suite taken by his cover persona. That they were not surrounded by medical equipment and a cadre of no-nonsense nursing staff meant that either his condition was not so bad as he might have feared, despite his partners’ worry, or they were still exposed in such a way that going to the hospital or returning to HQ would end the mission.

“Mission status?” he managed. His breaths were almost normal, now, though he still ached deeply from head to heel and more than two words together was sure to set off another coughing fit. Even so, if he’d been made and poisoned, that likely meant that they had little time to finish what they started and either take or destroy the plans. He’d need a day, but by tomorrow, certainly, he could be on his feet again—

“Over,” Gaby said firmly. Napoleon could only blink in surprise.

“We are officially…” Gaby paused, as if searching for the right words.

“On leave,” Illya supplied, expression deadpan. “The mission is complete. Terrible fire last night at the facility after we got you out. Burned to the ground.”

“I’ve been in contact with Waverly,” Gaby added gamely. “He knows where we are, and what happened.” Illya couldn’t help but grimace a little, Napoleon noted. That meant Gaby had probably actually called in to Waverly, but—

“It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t get to the plans, but at least they’re out of T.H.R.U.S.H’s hands. Anyway, I told him we were taking the medical leave you—we, that we are due...here,” she said finally, settling on the bed next to Illya and smoothing the blankets with her palm.

“For security purposes,” Illya supplied. “You are on leave. We are surveilling the ruins of the facility. We could learn valuable information about who comes sniffing about the scraps left behind.” Napoleon covered his consternation by rubbing at his face. He wasn’t wrong, and yet—

“Not our job,” he said roughly, voice crackling and the statement punctuated by a cough. There were low-level teams learning the ropes doing just this sort of thing, after all. Gaby and Illya exchanged a glance, and Gaby tapped the gas delivery tube with her finger.

“You’ll feel better by tomorrow. The lab promised as much,” she said slowly, and Illya nodded his staunch agreement. Gaby dropped the tube to the blankets and tilted her head.

“If we go back to London, we’ll have a day, maybe two, before we’re assigned a new mission. It’s always something,” she observed.

“So, we stay. We watch. And we also rest,” Illya said firmly.

“ _You_ want—vacation?” Napoleon managed incredulously, leaning forward from the pillows to fix Illya with a searching look. Illya only rolled his eyes and rubbed at his stubbled cheek, muttering curses in muffled Russian before slapping Napoleon gently on the back, prompting a fresh, choking cough from his throat. Gaby huffed indignantly and punched Illya on the shoulder, but he only set his lips into a thin line once Napoleon had recovered his breath, though he slumped back against the bedding with a withering glare.

“Not vacation. Rest,” Illya said firmly. With a determined air, he settled back against the headboard of the bed, tugging his cap down over his eyes and nudging his shoulder into Napoleon.

“Go back to sleep, Cowboy.”

“Well. In—that case,” he muttered, voice rasping and hitching. Illya’s grunt of disapproval at his choice to speak was muffled, but he just propped his legs up on the side of the bed as well without chastising him anew. Gaby moved to slip off the bed and retreat to the chaise on the other side of the room, but Napoleon wordlessly touched her arm and patted the other side of the bed with a raised eyebrow.

That she didn’t hesitate before curling up on the far side of the bed was a comfort nearly equivalent to the warmth of his partners to either side as he drifted back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies, but due to technical issues this is only one half of your gift. I will get the second half to you as soon as the power comes back consistently. *shakes fist at the storm*
> 
> Also, the title was low-hanging fruit but I couldn't resist.


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